Grief Classes, Workshops & Projects; Reiki Sessions & Classes; Teaching, Learning & Writing Support We both earned our Ph.D. degrees by the age of 29.
Welcome to Inviting Abundance, a collection of wellness and educational services for people seeking to engage with the complexity of life. To help you understand the scope of these services, we offer this brief introduction about us:
Together, we have achieved a great deal. We have travelled and lived abroad. We have published books and essays on various topics. Our backgrounds in the performing arts and literature have brought us into contact with international artists and thinkers, many of whom we count as our greatest friends and teachers. None of our achievements, however, prepared us for the death of our son in June, 2014. Finlay Emilio died of unknown causes at the end of 20+ hours of labor, and his departure from this world broke us into millions of jagged pieces. Finlay's death devastated us, clarified what mattered most to us, and opened us up in ways we could not have previously imagined. Our slow process of healing has allowed in new ways of thinking, feeling, learning, and growing. We recognized, as Rumi says, that light enters through the wound. We soon realized, however, that no pre-existing job matched our unique blend of abilities and life experiences. Instead of trying to fit ourselves into a place that didn't feel quite right for us, we decided to make a place crafted with creativity and care. Inviting Abundance is a space where we continue to grow and thrive as we work with others who want to cultivate a purposeful and creative life attuned to the complexity of the world and their own hearts. There is great abundance in grieving, in continuing your education, and in embracing significant life changes. To access this abundance, you need to invite it in. We want to help you craft your invitation.
- Joanne Zerdy & Will Daddario
11/20/2025
📣 New Online Workshop ~
So many of us are balancing a lot right now: Personal, employment, family, neighborhood, and/or community needs.
Join one of the upcoming sessions to connect with other compassionate warriors who are putting time and effort into make the world a better place.
Engage in a few reflective activities to slow down, attend to your body, and create some useful reminders for yourself to ground in the coming weeks and months.
Participants receive a wee Workshop Package from Finlay's Garden with herbal teas and hand-stamped cards.
Trans Inclusive Offering!
Dates:
Monday, December 1 - from 10am-12pm EST
Friday, December 12 from 12-2pm EST
Saturday, January 3 from 4-6pm EST
Wednesday, January 21 from 7-9pm EST
Sliding-scale registration begins at: $40
*No one turned away for lack of funds -- please reach out to Joanne at grow [at] invitingabundance.net
11/10/2025
Join us in the coming weeks for these small group & heart-forward online offerings!
🌹Herbal Supports for Compassionate Warriors -
is a 2-hour workshop for those working in some way to bring about a better world - for their loved ones, their communities, and/or the world at large. Learn about plant allies with an affinity for our nervous systems and engage in reflective activities.
🤲 Holding Space for Pregnancy Loss -
is a 5-hour, 2-part training for everyone who wants to feel more confident is supporting those who experience any kind of Pregnancy or Infant Loss.
📝 Build Your Class -
is a 4-week workshop for those of you needing logistical and/or emotional support as you create your own class, workshop, or project to put into the world.
All of our offerings are Trans Inclusive!
Registration is a Sliding-Scale Basis!
✨️ Learn more by clicking on our Bio Link
[Id: Graphic of a birch tree. At top right: Upcoming Online Offerings. Then, above each tree branch, an oval: Herbs for Warriors-Jan. & Feb; Holding Space for Pregnancy Loss-Jan & March; Build Your Class-Feb]
11/07/2025
NEW💫 Herbs for Warriors Class AND Will's New Book: The Last Laugh 😮
~Check out some resources for these trying times.
~Enjoy a Fall discount at Finlay's Garden Shop for stocking up for handmade goodies.
~Join us for an upcoming class or workshop.
While we designed this workshop for those who are grieving something(s) or someone(s), we also welcome those interested in learning new approaches for supporting grieving friends, clients, and community members. You needn't consider yourself an "artistic" or "creative" person in order to join us 🤗.
Each week we provide you with an optional activity prompt based on a particular topic/theme:
We welcome Compassionate Warriors 💗💪🏽💪💪🏿🦾💪🏻💗 of all stripes -- those who pull from deep wells of strength, courage, resourcefulness, and determination to tend all that needs tending in our world.
**As always, our offerings are Trans Inclusive!**
This two-hour workshop:
💚 Introduces you to a handful of plant allies that have an affinity for our nervous systems
🧡 Shares some ideas for incorporating them into your daily life
💛 Invites you to take part in gentle, reflective activities
💜 Provides you with a Pre-Workshop Mini-Package of a trio of herbal tea bags & pair of hand-stamped Reminder Cards
🤎 Sends you a list of Additional Resources to support your Warrior Journey
📅 Upcoming Dates:
Monday, December 1 - from 10am-12pm EST
Friday, December 12 from 12-2pm EST
Saturday, January 3 from 4-6pm EST
Wednesday, January 21 from 7-9pm EST
Sliding-Scale Registration:
$40 ! $60 ! $80
*Please reach out if you need a reduced registration rate due to limited financial means :)
Photos all come from Finlay's Garden 3.0 🐌
10/23/2025
"There are losses that unmake our words. We learn this, not from a book but, from the empty chair, the quiet where a voice once lived.
The world says be efficient, be productive, as if a wound could be taught manners.
But the first lesson of grieving is older than speech, the dark soil under every feeling. It is the real work of the living, not the thin busyness we call a life. It is the heavy, night work that redraws each morning.
Go outside. Stand by the field where the grasses lean. Watch the hawk take the long circle. Let your own heart slow to the pace of shade and sun.
We have been trained to run from the heart—speed where stillness is needed, spectacle and judgment where witness is required—and the cost is clear: Countries that refuse grief are bereft of mercy and tenderness. When we cannot grieve, we cannot love without fear.
Integration comes when we sit among ashes without pretending, when we keep company through the long weather of absence, when we allow the broken truth of grieving to do its patient work.
Whatever is sold to us, remember: what saves us does not come in a bottle. It comes as a small bird on a fence line, a hand taken without hurry, the faithful return of lightness, the compassion in another’s eyes." (2009, journal entry)
~~~~
This is a throwback to a journal entry from 2009.
I was reading it this morning as I came across my 'retired' ones. I was writing from my more wise self to my own heart at the time as a reminder of why I was committed to the heavy, and worthy, work of fully inhabited grief.
10/23/2025
We see just about everything through the lens of grief. What about you? 💔💔
We wish to normalize individual and collective grief in its varied forms. If you're looking to pass some time in the compassionate company of fellow grievers who want to work with their grief in a new way, we hope that you feel warmly invited to attend our next online Creative Grief Workshop. https://invitingabundance.net/upcoming-events/grief-workshop-nov2025
Each week we share optional activity prompts for engaging your grief through language, design/mapping, embodied awareness, and reflective rituals.
We will gather each unday this November to share, process, and engage in additional activities together.
🖤 Sliding-Scale Registration
❤ Trans Inclusive Offering
💙Small Group Gathering
Art Credit: Kintsugi pottery photograph: Riho Kitagawa [unsplash.com/]
💞💔💞
10/15/2025
We are beyond grateful to you, our beloved child Finlay, for shaping how we see, hear, feel, and move through the world every single day. We miss you. We love you. 💛🦉💛
If you are grieving for your child(ren), we send you extra love and strength today.
If you support grieving families, thank you so very very much.
If you know a grieving parent, please reach out to say that you honor their loss and will support them along their lifelong grieving and healing journey. (It's never too late to share love.)
🕯🫶
[ID: a photo of a series of lit votive candles on the right-side of the image. At the top, these words in light yellow font: "Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day" Below, "May the glow of candlelight remind us that we are forever connected to our beloved babies."]
Chapters:
Intro: Laugh at Your Own Risk
1: How This Is Funny
2: Seriously Funny: Actual Cynicism
3: Fall Silent to Begin
4: Strange Bedfellows? Anton Chekhov and Kent Monkman
5: The Comedy of “We” the People
6: Laughing to Break Out: Trump and Ordinary Psychosis
7: Memes, or “Plus Les Choses Changent, Plus Les Choses Restent Les Mêmes”
8: Conclusion: Against an Active Addiction to the Same
We'd love to get this book onto library shelves (especially as it's a bit pricey!). So if you have connections at a university or public library, please consider asking the institution to order a copy! Then, it'll be available to read for you and your neighbors to read for free 🥰
Which photo of Will do you prefer?? 🙂 OR 😲
09/29/2025
Do you work with pregnant and/or postpartum folks? Do you support those who have experienced perinatal loss? Are you interested in deepening your understanding of pregnancy + infant loss? Do you wish to expand your resources to support those in your community who have experienced miscarriage, stillbirth, baby loss, et. al?
🍁 This 5-hour course -- https://invitingabundance.net/holding-space-for-pregnancy-loss-training -- was designed with supporters, care providers, and space holders in mind. It equips participants with an understanding of grief as a natural, normal, and healthy response to deep loss and painful transition. And it shares various resources for bereaved parents and families, including practical supports and ideas for meaningful rituals.
🍁 If you are called to birth or death work OR if you work as a medical or mental health provider OR if you want to be a community advocate for bereaved families, I warmly invite you to check out this online course.
🍁 Joanne teaches the course with the embodied experience of a grieving parent AND the academic background as a researcher and educator.
[Id: At top: garland graphic of autumn leaves & acorns. Beneath: "Holding Space for Pregnancy Loss - 5-hour online training - October 1 & 8- Deepen your understanding; Grow your resources" Below that: the logos of and ]
09/24/2025
Welcome, Autumn. 🍂 We send our Northern Hemisphere friends a heart-felt wish for a meaningful autumnal season full of warmth and collective care.
🍁 May you feel the vibrancy of your connections across the veil.
🍁 May our beloved dead guide us all toward healthier, more equitable, inclusive, and generative futures for humans and the more-than-human world...
And...
❤️F🧡r💛e🤎e🖤 ❤️P🤎a🤍l🧡e❤️s🧡t💛i🤎n🖤e
[ID: light orange background. In the center a pale yellow circle. These words in black font: "Autumn invites us to deepen our relationships with our dead loved ones. May we slow down, quiet our minds, and ground ourselves enough to feel their presence and absorb their wisdom." Autumnal-colored leaves frame the circle on the top-left and bottom-right.]
Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Inviting Abundance posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Driven by our experience as grieving parents and PhD researchers in the Arts and Humanities, we started Inviting Abundance in 2017 in order to offer something that didn’t yet exist. We imagined a place where grief work, individual and group education, self-care, and alternative healing combine into a holistic suite of services for people from all walks of life. This imagined place is our business, which we grow a bit each day.
Our grief journey derives its momentum from the death of our son, Finlay, on June 5, 2014. Since then, we have (mostly) shifted our attention away from academia where we had worked for nearly a decade to the interpersonal relationships forged between grievers. We have met many people suffering from the death of a loved one, infertility and pregnancy loss, a chronic illness, a heartbreaking end to a relationship, and countless other painful life experiences. These meetings led us to offer specific grief work opportunities for those who are seeking to open to grief.
The births of our second son, Phalen, and third son, Ren, added texture to our daily experience of grief. Ren in particular, who was born with a complex heart condition, teaches us the precariousness of everyday life and has challenged us to interface with the Western medical system on a weekly basis. To power ourselves, we draw from Phalen’s internal white light and Finlay’s guidance, and we attempt through the act of parenting to increase our empathy for all forms of life on this planet.
All the while, we have pursued our individual education. Will continues to be active in the academic world as editor of a book series, online journal, and articles about a wide range of topics in the Humanities, in addition to his writings on grief. After leaving academia, Joanne attained a Permaculture Design Certificate and completed an intensive 1000-hour course in Herbalism, in part to cultivate the work of Finlay’s Garden. Together, we use our various educational experiences to design online classes and individual mentorship packages to support others as they cultivate their critical, creative, scholastic, and imaginative thinking.
Moving into the next decade of the 21st Century, we hope to add more services tailored to the needs of the people we meet. If you are intrigued by our services but don’t see something that suits your particular needs, please reach out to us. Through conversation, we may very well find a way to put our extensive tapestry of skills to service for you.
- Joanne Zerdy & Will Daddario
